Kevin A. Menicoche

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ask some questions of the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. Earlier today I spoke in my Member’s statement about the repair and renovation programs that are available to all residents of the NWT, but most particularly my concern is about our seniors, those on pensions, and our disabled. There’s the co-pay component on the majority of our programming, and in my experience I’ve seen that in the small and remote communities people don’t have access to $500 that they’re required to co-pay on.

I’d like to ask the Minister...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just with the resources available for Highway No. 1, of course it includes the section between Fort Simpson and Wrigley, and most particularly, from the N’Dulee ferry towards the Willow River Bridge, that particular section never really recovered from all the trucks that were on that road when they were doing the Enbridge Pipeline’s recovery operations. I drove it a couple times this fall already and it really needs some work. I know that there was some planned work for this fall. I’m not too sure what was done, and I know that I’ve seen the engineers on that...

Highway No. 7, Mr. Chair. I’m pleased with the resources available for our Highway No. 7 reconstruction. Perhaps I can just ask the Minister about the current plans for ’16-17 for the amount of money that’s resourced for next year.

Just with the much larger airport, the Minister was in Trout Lake and one of the needs is a snow blower as opposed to using the graders. That’s one of the requests, is to move towards a snow blower for the community of Trout Lake for their much larger airport. They really feel that they’ll maintain the airport a lot better with a snow blower.

I’d just like to ask, is it on any short-term plan for the community of Trout Lake? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to direct your attention to Trout Lake. I know that people are very happy with a much longer runway, but I think there was some remedial work that was done to the slumpage in the springtime, so maybe the Minister could comment on it. I don’t see any capital for ’16-17. Does that mean that the airport settled just great and we’ll have many years of operational life of the current airport? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I do have other issues that I’ll address in the detail, but just overall this has been a significant week, beginning last week with the potential claims of the Inuvik-Tuk Highway there. My initial concern and my original concern was about should the claims be successful about taking away from other capital projects, especially in ’16-17, so I’d like to ask the Minister: how is the department and how is this government going to handle the potential claim, should it be accepted, especially when we’re talking about capital items and transportation in ’16-17? You...

I thank the Minister for that answer. With the project listing for the ’16-17 construction year, are any of those multiplex-type buildings planned for next year then?

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. With the Charles Tetcho School addition, I am pleased we are addressing the concerns of the larger student population in Trout Lake. I know that the community agreed to the school addition with reservations because that is their community hall and they are losing it. It needs to be said, Mr. Chair, that I am pleased that we are addressing the student population and the growth of the community of Trout Lake; however, we are losing the community hall. Maybe with the Minister’s support, he can raise with his Cabinet colleagues that moving forward in future capital...

Certainly that’s the kind of information I had asked the Minister to provide, so I don’t know if he can provide me with those facts, the actual costs between the 16-hour day versus an 18-hour day. Because the head residents are saying, well, they ran that way at the Providence ferry, why can’t they run it here at the Liard crossing at Fort Simpson? So, a good comparison will let us look at those figures and see what it would take to move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Sometimes you have to challenge government; sometimes you have to commend them, so that’s what I’m going to do today.

On September 15, 2015, I had the honour to celebrate the opening of the newly built John Tsetso Memorial Library in Fort Simpson. It was my pleasure to join the Honourable Jackson Lafferty, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment; Dehcho First Nations Grand Chief Herb Norwegian; Liidlii Kue Chief Gerry Antoine; Mayor Sean Whelly and the residents of Fort Simpson to celebrate this long awaited and very special event.

A library is the heart...